Globe Covers Academic Best-Seller

Harvard Academic on Front Page,

But not Stephen Walt

Letter to the Editor

by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)

 

Dear Editor:

 

In Academia's Big Hit (Boston Globe, February 18, 2008, p. 1) Globe staff member Peter Schworm writes:

"This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War," the roundly acclaimed new book from Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust, is also a fast-rising bestseller.

With 35,000 copies sold since early January, the scholarly book has vaulted to seventh on the New York Times nonfiction list and recently climbed to 30th on the Amazon.com bestseller list, mainly populated by works of pop-culture icons John Grisham, James Patterson, Stephen King, and an array of self-help guides.

Those are strange bedfellows for a book academics hail as a major historical breakthrough. That is a clear sign that Faust's work has accomplished the rare feat of bridging the steep divide between the ivory tower and mainstream readers. Its commercial success has caught the eye of publishers and academics alike, who say its brisk sales and widespread public attention are strikingly rare for an academic, and nearly with out precedent for a sitting university president.

If the rare feat of Faust's book merited a front page story in February 2008, then the success of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by Harvard Professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer certainly should have been worthy of front page coverage when it made the NY Times best seller list for several weeks after its September 4 release.

Since Walt and Mearsheimer's book appeared, only two Globe articles have even mentioned it.

Jeff Jacoby demonstrated the mendacity of Israel advocates in The big lie about the 'Great Silencer' (September 23, 2007, p. E9) while Elaine McArdle reported her experiences as a reporter on AIPAC junket in I was lobbied by the 'Israel lobby' (October 7, 2007, p. E1).

She wrote:

When I'd stayed in Jerusalem years ago, a college friend and I met a young Israeli Arab who showed us around the Old City without proselytizing. He had brothers in California and was eager to reach out to Americans. I yearned to talk with someone like him.

Even more glaring was the omission of the Palestinian point of view. We met with dozens of Israelis with a range of political views but only one Palestinian, Dr. Saeb Erakat, chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization. While this could have been an important moment in our trip, Erakat talked in circles for 45 minutes, and none of us had any idea what points - if any - he was trying to make.

Yet, she concluded:

At the end of a week, what had AIPAC gotten for its investment in me? Did I come back rabidly pro-Israel? No. Did I come back significantly better informed and far more interested in the Middle East? Absolutely. I am reading a daily newspaper, Haaretz, online and hope to return to the region.

Was I swayed by AIPAC? It is hard for me to say. I don't think so. Of course I don't.

If Jacoby had not mentioned that The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy had been a NY Times and LA Times  best-seller in order to denigrate the authors' claim that US media skews coverage of Israel-related issues, an exclusive reader of the Globe would never have known.

While Globe management may be reflexively or consciously shaping news coverage to the dictates of Israel supporters, it is equally possible that lower-level Zionist or Jewish gatekeepers and facilitators do so without direction from superiors. In either case, responsible journalism at this point might include a front page article about the book or a review at the very least to investigate how well Walt and Mearsheimer's main thesis stands up to scrutiny six months later.

Sincerely yours,

Joachim Martillo
Boston, MA 02126-2813

 

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